On the afternoon of Jan. 6, my wife and I attended a Baylor Lady Bears basketball game at the Ferrell Center in Waco to see the iconic Brittney Griner and the rest of the team. At the same time, Baylor’s other icon, Robert Griffin III, was leading his Washington Redskins teammates in an NFL playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks.

Before the basketball game and at halftime, the video screen showed the football game. Early on, Washington was doing well and the fans in the Ferrell were cheering.

A short distance to the west, the new Baylor football stadium, a facility that would not have been built if Griffin had not led a gridiron revival, was going up. No. 10 may have left the Brazos for the Potomac, but his presence still was potent.

Yet when the football game returned to the screen at halftime, there was little to cheer. Griffin was limping and taking vicious shots on a shoddy dirt field. Many in the crowd knew that he had already sustained a serious knee injury during his second year at Baylor and wanted to see him removed from the game.

It is at this point that “RG3: The Promise,” written by Washington Post sportswriter Dave Sheinin, begins. Sheinin, who was assigned to cover Griffin after his arrival in Washington, chronicles the game (which Washington lost), the resulting devastating knee injury Griffin suffered, and the ensuing controversy over whether Washington coaches should have taken Griffin out of the game sooner despite his insistence that he stay in.

Sheinin examines both sides. He dissects Griffin’s desire to lead his team and win his teammates’ allegiance, along with the coaches’ opinion that running the zone read option actually reduced his risk of injury more than passing from the pocket. (In the zone read, after the ball is snapped, the quarterback looks at what certain defensive players are doing and then makes a quick decision whether to run or pass. Griffin’s speed makes him particularly adept for this offense.) Sheinin notes that some in Griffin’s camp, perhaps even Griffin himself, believe he was put at risk, while coaches point out that his injuries occurred when he scrambled out of the pocket, not on designed runs.

Griffin’s injury and the possibility of a schism with coaches put a cloud over his future and a damper on one of the most brilliant rookie years in NFL history. His running ability and accurate passing led what became a revolution in quarterback play, as the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers also adopted the zone read.

Yet the most interesting sections of Sheinin’s book — which is admittedly light on the Baylor years — focus on Griffin’s childhood and family. Griffin’s parents, Robert Jr. and Jacqueline, both served in the military and pushed RG3 to strive to be the best he could be on the field and in the classroom — without pushing too hard.

The “promise” of the title refers in part to the time when RG3 was about to start playing football in junior high. Jacqueline made him pinky swear that he would not get hurt. He promised he would outrun any trouble, which he could do because he was the fastest kid in town.

Even as a kid, he knew the risk of injury in football could hamper him in other sports he liked — basketball (his favorite), and track (which he excelled at). Robert Jr. played the role of personal coach. He devised workouts, such as running up a hill with an SUV tire, and gave his son video pointers. When it was decided RG3 would concentrate on football, his dad showed him videos of Dan Marino, Roger Staubach and Fran Tarkenton rather than black running quarterbacks such as Randall Cunningham or Vince Young. The Griffins didn’t want RG3 stereotyped as a black athlete playing quarterback. They wanted him to be known as a quarterback only.

This did not keep many of the college recruiters from making the fatal mistake of trying to sign him for positions other than QB, including the University of Texas. RG3 was not on any of the top 100 recruits lists nationally, and no one had him in the top 10 in Texas, which shows the unreliability of the recruiter rankings, Sheinin notes. Early on, Baylor’s then-coach Guy Morriss told Griffin he would have to walk on if he wanted to play QB. But coach Art Briles, then at the University of Houston, recognized his talent and wanted him to come to play at Robertson Stadium.

Then Morriss was justly fired, Briles was hired, and the Baylor revival began — led by Briles and RG3.
Jacqueline and Robert Jr. raised their children to not be conscious of race and to avoid stereotypes. Despite a long-stated goal of becoming a lawyer, RG3 has avoided speaking out on political and racial issues in public, although he was often in the midst of these sorts of discussions in his political science classes at Baylor.

Last year, a black commentator on ESPN wondered on air if he was “a brother or is he just a cornball brother.”

Griffin chose not to engage this challenge to his blackness and has remained his own man, someone who leads by example. During his years in Waco, he fought to close the wide gap between Baylor and the town, a phenomenon known as the “Baylor Bubble.” He became involved in several charities.

RG3 has become the highest-profile athlete in the world’s most powerful city. His team, founded by an avowed racist, sports a name that is offensive to American Indians. He plays in a place known as “Chocolate City,” where black residents have embraced him and see him as a role model. Many hope he will be able to persuade the owner to change the team’s name.

It is hard to think of anyone who has been given more in the way of talent and expectations. RG3 has a lot on his shoulders. If his past is any indication, he is up to the task. As he said in his Heisman Award speech, “No pressure, no diamonds.”

“RG3: The Promise” pulls no punches about the violent world of football, but it also is a great book on parenting.

Chronicle copy editor Dave Sowders is a former sports editor of the Baylor Lariat.